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Ancestory is a family history service that weaves together rigorous archival archeology and inspired people-centered storytelling, fostering an accessible personalized journey through your family tree. This unique ancestry experience is curated by Dr. Jake A. Robertson, a professional historian and theatermaker whose career has taken him from the halls of Princeton and Oxford to the archives of the Russian Subarctic, from Shakespeare’s Globe to New York City’s cabaret circuit. As a researcher, artist and family historian, Dr. Robertson has spent decades unearthing the most human stories from lost pages of history and sharing them with audiences all over the world. Now he is bringing those passions and skills together to create a truly one-of-a-kind ancestry experience, bringing personal family histories to life.
STAGING THE GULAG
Talk at NYU Jordan Center
March 23, 2026 at 4pm
At the height of the Second World War, during the deadliest period in its history, Stalin’s Gulag experienced a theatrical “golden age.” As thousands of prisoners perished in the mines, quarries and lumber mills, forced-labor capitals like subarctic Vorkuta and Siberian Magadan appropriated tremendous resources and personnel to construct massive theaters behind the barbed wire, where paragons of the Soviet stage performed sophisticated Italian operas, jaunty Viennese operettas and complex classical plays to adoring crowds of hundreds of thousands. Behind the “golden age” of Gulag theater was a world of powerful patron-bosses, Soviet cultural colonization, and remarkable artistic achievement as human creativity and human brutality collided on the edge of Stalin’s Empire.
Dr. Robertson!
On May 1, 2025, I officially became a Doctor. I passed my Oxford University Ph.D. dissertation defense (called a viva voce in Ox parlance) with no corrections! My esteemed examiners were Soviet cultural historian Zbigniew Wojnowski (Oxford) and Gulag scholar Alan Barenberg (Texas Tech). Many thanks to my terrific supervisors Profs. Dan Healey & Polly Jones. Now let's get this baby published!
"Soviet Stages" at Tisch Drama (NYU)
Over the course of the Fall Semester at NYU, I developed a brand new interdisciplinary course titled "Soviet Stages: Theatre as Revolution, Repression & Resisitance in the USSR". The course covered all of Soviet History from Revolution to Collapse through the lens of theatrical culture. "Soviet Stages" was fully-enrolled with 22 Drama majors (sophomores, juniors and seniors) who met for 3 hours each week. Weekly seminars were split into three Acts.
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Act I: Lecture on Historical Context
Act II: Guided Group Discussions
Act III: Embodied Exploration through Performance
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Assessment was reimagined to give students options and a diverse learning experience. The course was broken into six mini-projects that could take the form of a critical writing assignment, a creative writing project or a performance proposal.
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"Soviet Stages" was a huge success, with many of the students writing (in anonymous feedback) that it was their favorite course at NYU!
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Hosted by America’s Love Coach, Saundra Lezzenbaum, this intimate community mixer is the solution to NYC’s Cost of Loving Crisis!
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If you’re looking for authentic connections, open-hearted conversation and one-of-a-kind Love Lezzons, join us for an evening that turns every crowd into a community.
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NEXT SHOWS
MARCH 21
APRIL 18
MAY 23
JUNE 27
SATURDAY NIGHT LOVE
Saundra's Monthly Residency
at Sanger Hall in Sunnyside
